


As one who found peace

by duesternis



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Breast Fucking, Chest Hair, Hand & Finger Kink, M/M, Motorboating, handjobs, love is stored in the tiddies, this is just super soft and tender actually
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:54:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28246527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/duesternis/pseuds/duesternis
Summary: Harry always had a smile he could spare Mr Collins and his nervous hands.He always had a smile to spare for what he imagined those hands capable of.Large and square and worn from work and weather, but never cruel.Harry wondered how they would feel, clasped around his own hands and on his shoulders.How Mr Collins would smell, stood close before Harry, shadowing his face with his big shoulders.Probably of salt – sweat, more than the sea, frozen as it is – and grease. Lamp oil and wool and the strong tea the men get.
Relationships: Henry Collins/Harry D. S. Goodsir
Comments: 4
Kudos: 27





	As one who found peace

**Author's Note:**

> title is from song of Solomon 8:10
> 
> Hope you like this, Seth!!

Harry Goodsir had always been good at noticing when people looked at him.  
A little tickle down his spine, the foreign feeling of spiderwebs against his arms.  
Nowadays he felt that almost every hour of every day.

No small wonder with Erebus overflowing as it is, men cramped together, doubling bunks and hammocks, but there’s always one man especially.  
Mr Collins, hair hanging over his eyes, hands busy and face turned towards Harry.  
Harry always had a smile he could spare Mr Collins and his nervous hands.  
He always had a smile to spare for what he imagined those hands capable of.

Large and square and worn from work and weather, but never cruel.  
Harry wondered how they would feel, clasped around his own hands and on his shoulders.  
How Mr Collins would smell, stood close before Harry, shadowing his face with his big shoulders.  
Probably of salt – sweat, more than the sea, frozen as it is – and grease. Lamp oil and wool and the strong tea the men get.  
A mug of it was steadily cooling on the corner of Harry’s desk.

Sorting the dwindling supplies, lanolin in high demand among the frostbitten men, Harry’s mind kept wandering to home.  
London, Edinburgh, the gentle coasts of Britain.  
To his family and then to the enjoyable little parties he used to go to. Half-casual affairs of drinks and music and some dancing in private houses.  
Little nooks and crannies in gardens that hid away the people daring to be intimate. Hands held, cheeks kissed, arms around each other.  
Harry had never had anyone to hold his hand like that, kiss his cheek, or sit with him so close that thighs and shoulders pressed into each other.

He wondered what it would be like to have Mr Collins sit so close to him.  
To have Mr Collins’ strong arm around his shoulders.  
To have Mr Collins’ breath against his cheek.  
To lean his temple against Mr Collins as they embrace.

“Dr Goodsir?”  
Harry jerked out of his vivid daydream, ink dripping from his pen, marring the records. Dr Stanley would be displeased, but the man was always displeased.  
“Dr Goodsir?”, softer this time and Harry looked over his shoulder at Mr Collins.  
He wore his coat, hair hanging limp into his forehead.

“Mr Collins!”  
Harry burst out of his seat, pen dropping into the record book.  
“What can I do for you?”  
In the hallway two men carrying a trunk between them shuffled by and Mr Collins gingerly closed the sliding door, hands shaking.  
They did that a lot now, Harry had noticed.  
Might be the cold, but Mr Collins seldom seemed affected by that. Or at least not to the same degree as the other men.

“I was wondering, sir, if we could sit?” Mr Collins indicated the narrow desk and the two rickety chairs with his shaking hand.  
Harry nodded, throat tight from embarrassment.  
What if Mr Collins could see some vestige of his daydream hanging around Harry? What if, somehow, Mr Collins knew Harry’s mind?  
The depravity of it all.

“Please, Mr Collins,” he said, pointing at the chairs, “Sit.”  
With a shaky nod Mr Collins sat down, looking at the spreading blot of ink in the records book.  
Timidly Harry picked the pen up and put it in its case. He would have to salvage the book later.  
Mr Collins’ boots scuffed over the floor, his hands rubbing the edge of his coat.  
For a long moment they sat in silence.

Then Mr Collins cleared his throat and looked at Harry through his flopping hair. He was long overdue for a cut, but most of the men were.  
“Dr Goodsir, I...”  
He looked down, looked up again and scooted to the very edge of the seat.  
“I’ve been having these dreams.”

Harry frowned, nodding for Mr Collins to go on.  
Strange, vivid dreams where something Mr Morfin had also complained about.  
Maybe it was a symptom for an added ailment.

“Strange dreams. It’s like I don’t even know I’m dreaming, so real are they. And they keep coming back.”  
“What are they about, Mr Collins, if you do not mind sharing?”  
Inexplicably, Mr Collins laughed, putting his hands on the edge of the desk like a school boy.  
“Home, I reckon, would be a way to describe it.”

Harry nodded. “Many of the men dream of home, and it is only natural. We’ve been away a long time and the mind searches for comfort in the known. So it turns to memories of home, Mr Collins. There is no need to be afraid of that.”  
Well.

Memories and nostalgia were close together and Harry was unsure of a dividing line. Maybe there was every reason to be afraid.  
But what good would it do, to tell the men that the increasing thoughts of home only meant that they were sick?  
“It is not memories, I’d say, doctor. At least not true memories. They feel like memories, the dreams, but awake I cannot remember ever having been in those situations.”  
Potential memory loss. Or truly only dreams.

“Can you tell me one such dream, Mr Collins?”, Harry asked, quick to add “Only if you are comfortable with it!” when Mr Collins’ face blanched.  
They sat in silence for a long moment and outside it rang six bells of the afternoon watch.  
Mr Collins shifted in his seat and then smoothed his hands over his unruly hair, flattening the curls against his head.  
“In one of the dreams I come home. Not to the room I had before we set sail and not the house I grew up in. But I know it is home. It’s a little town house, flowers on the sills and curtains hung up. My key turns the lock and inside it smells like flowers and...”  
Here he faltered and looked at Harry.

“Go on,” he said gently and smiled.  
Mr Collins swallowed and braved on.

“And home. It-it smells like home. I know someone is waiting for me upstairs and I hang my coat and take off my boots to make sure the stairs don’t creak and I go up. Down the green hallway to the last room.”  
His fingers, skin cracked on the knuckles, one fingernail split from the cold, moved along the edge of the desk to its corner and then back.  
“The door opens and there’s a study or-or library inside. And at the desk by the window...”

Harry nodded again when Mr Collins looked to him.  
Would it be appropriate to put an encouraging hand on his forearm?  
“By the window someone sits. Reading or, I don’t know, writing maybe. Looking up at me and I am so, so in love with...”

“Oh, Mr Collins.” Harry put a hand on Mr Collins’ arm. Squeezing the coat gently. “Did you leave a sweetheart behind in England? A wife maybe?”  
“I’m not married,” Mr Collins mumbles, eyes drifting from Harry’s hand up his arm, to his shoulder and then he looked at Harry's face.  
“You must miss your sweetheart, then, Mr Collins, and you simply dream of what may come to pass once we return home. I am sure she will be quite happy to see you, and that she dreams of you as well.”

Why would one not dream of Mr Collins? Of sharing a home with him, a future?  
Harry bit his tongue to keep from saying anything more, anything inappropriate.  
Mr Collins cleared his throat and nodded slowly.  
“Only, Dr Goodsir, I’ve no sweetheart either. Not since a long time now.”

Harry’s heart gave a little jolt and he swallowed, mouth dry.  
“Well, it might be a hope, you have, Mr Collins. We all hope to have a home, someone to love and who loves us. Take comfort in those dreams, Mr Collins, there is no shame in them. Nothing strange about wanting a warm hearth in this place, and I think all of the men would agree.”  
Harry gave Mr Collins’ arm a last squeeze and then slowly retreated his hand back to his lap.

Mr Collins’ fingers clenched around the edge of the table and a tear rolled down his nose, dripping on his coat and resting on the wool.  
There was no word for the rattling feeling that almost made Harry drop to his knees and hold Mr Collins in his arms at the sight of that.

“I’ll never have that,” Mr Collins choked out, another tear falling.  
“Mr Collins, please, I...”  
It wasn’t often that Harry had to deal with grown men crying.  
At home it was not a thing done.  
But they were far from home and Harry had cried himself to sleep more than once since they had set sail.

“I...”  
Mr Collins wiped his nose on his sleeve and Harry pulled his handkerchief from his pocket, offering it up. It had a simple H embroidered in one corner and Mr Collins pressed his thumb over the letter, before wiping his eyes.  
“Sorry, doctor.”  
“Don’t be, please. It is as natural as breathing to cry.”  
Mr Collins choked a little laugh out and turned in his chair so that their knees knocked.

“Do you ever cry, Dr Goodsir?”  
“Oh! Oh, yes. Yes, I do.”  
“Do you dream of home?”  
“Yes. Often. Of my family and friends, mostly. But also of comforts I miss.” Harry fidgeted with his cuff and added “Gardens” in a small voice.  
Mr Collins blew his nose in Harry’s handkerchief and slid it into the pocket of his coat.  
Harry’s heart throbbed at the thought of Mr Collins keeping it beyond washing it.  
Of him pressing his thumb to the embroidered H again.

“I hardly remember gardens and I can’t recall what flowers smell like.”  
“I have some dried medicinal plants, but they smell very little like flowers, I fear.”  
Mr Collins smiled, eyes still wet and touched Harry’s knee gently.  
His hand was hot, even through the wool trousers and all of Harry’s layers.  
“Thank you, mighty kind, doctor.”

“I’m not truly a doctor.”  
“You’re the only doctor I need.”  
Harry looked down, glasses sliding on his nose, cheeks hot.  
Mr Collins’ thumb rubbed over his leg and Harry swallowed dry. Without thinking he covered Mr Collins’ hand with his own.  
They were both pale, the arctic darkness having long swallowed all traces of tanned skin.  
But Harry’s hand was notably more narrow, fingers longer. Still Mr Collins’ hand was bigger than his.  
And when Mr Collins turned it around, clasping Harry’s, palms catching, Harry’s breath hitched.

“Mr Collins, I-”  
Mr Collins leaned forward in his chair and kissed the corner of Harry’s open mouth.  
Harry closed his eyes and leaned into the almost cloying heat of Mr Collins.  
He hadn’t been warm in weeks, and here Mr Collins was, coat open over his jumper and skin hot.  
Mr Collins made a little noise and Harry turned his head, slotting their mouths together properly.  
Their hands were clasped so firmly that Harry could hardly tell who’s fingers were where.

He opened his mouth to gasp for breath and Mr Collins’ tongue pressed slickly into Harry’s mouth.  
No one had ever done that for him. Had wanted to taste him like that.  
And now Mr Collins made a feast of his mouth.

It was impossible to say how or when Harry ended up in Mr Collins’ lap, hands buried in his thick curls, Mr Collins’ hands firmly holding on to Harry’s waist.  
Mr Collins dragged his open mouth over the edge of Harry’s jaw, down to his neck, sucking at the rapid pulse beating there. His hands kneaded ever lower, until Harry’s arse was firmly clasped in Mr Collins’ unrelenting grasp.  
Harry in turn pulled at Mr Collins’ hair, scratching over his scalp and pressed himself as close against the man as he could.  
“Dr Goodsir,” breathed Mr Collins against his neck and Harry shuddered.  
“Please, call me Harry.”

“Harry, oh, Harry.” Mr Collins gasped and nuzzled into Harry’s shoulder, shaking for a moment.  
Harry smoothed his hands over the broad shoulders, the thick wool of the coat.  
“Here, now, Mr Collins, you should take that coat off, you’ll sweat it through and then it’ll freeze when you next go up.”  
“Henry.”  
“Yes?”

Mr Collins laughed and smoothed his thumb over Harry’s cheek.  
“No. Not you. You’re Harry, yes?”  
Harry nodded dumbly, turning his face into Mr Collins’ warm hand.  
“I am Henry. Call me Henry, please?”  
“Ah.”

Of course.  
Henry Collins.  
They shared their first name. How terrifyingly opportune that his parents had started calling him Harry almost immediately.  
Two Henrys, that would be quite awkward.  
“Henry,” Harry said softly and leaned his brow against Mr Collins’. Against Henry’s.

Henry shuddered and then kissed Harry again, one broad palm sweeping up under the jacket and waistcoat Harry wore.  
It was almost searing through the shirt and undershirt, branding Harry with pleasure.  
Then the hand retreated as quick as it had come and Harry was lifted up, thighs held safely, until he found himself sitting on the desk. The records book dug into his arse and he pulled it out, dropping it to the floor.  
Henry shrugged his coat off in such a powerful gesture that Harry couldn’t help but groan, prick twitching in his linens.  
His fingers scrabbled over his buttons, glasses sliding down his nose.  
Gently Henry picked them off of Harry’s face and put them atop the shelf, leaning over Harry.

Harry immediately forewent his buttons in favour of pushing Henry’s jumper up over his midriff, the shirt below soft and worn.  
Henry picked the hem out of Harry’s fingers and pulled the jumper over his head, dropping it unceremoniously to the floor.  
“Just the undershirt? Henry, do you not get cold?”  
“No, not as much as the other men. Do you?”  
Harry nodded, finally managing his buttons and wrestling his arms out of the sleeves and waistcoat.

Henry smoothed his hands over Harry’s shoulders, down his arms, until he wrapped Harry’s wrists in his gentle palms.  
Lifted them to his mouth, kissing the backs of Harry’s hands, and then put his palms on the thin linen of his undershirt.  
Directly over Henry’s heart, that hammered into Harry’s palm now. Heavy, rich thuds, the muscle swelling with every breath.  
Harry swallowed.  
“Henry,” he murmured, voice small and hoarse.  
Henry smiled down at him, hair falling handsomely over his brow.  
“Feel that?”

Harry nodded, fingers flexing over Henry’s chest. “Your heart.”  
“Beats like that for you, Harry. All the time. When I sleep, when I wake. When I work and eat. You’re always on my mind.”  
Harry’s breath caught in his throat and his fingers slipped down a bit, catching the hard nubs of Henry’s nipples. Hair rasped against the clothes and Harry swallowed, blood pulsing in his ears.  
It had always been obvious that Henry was one of the stronger men aboard, heavy-set and always ready to lend a hand to the men when they shifted trunks and hauled sail and whatnot.  
But to feel the thick muscles, hot under the thin linen, flexing in Harry’s palms when Henry moved? It was almost incomprehensible.

With a soft grunt Harry pushed Henry’s braces off his shoulders and pulled the undershirt out of the trousers.  
Henry lifted the hem of it over his head, keeping his arms covered against the cool air of the room, but exposing his chest for Harry’s eyes and hands.  
And oh, there was a lot to see and touch.  
Harry put his hand flat on Henry’s side, under his ribs, expecting a certain softness to the flesh, and finding none.  
Only firm muscle.  
A fine dusting of dark hair thickened towards the median line of Henry’s torso and Harry carded his fingers through it.  
Upwards, over Henry’s abdomen, the curve of his ribs and then Harry’s moving fingers faltered.

The chest, the heavy pectorals were covered in thick, black hair, the curls almost as defined as the ones hanging over Henry’s eyes.  
“Harry?”  
“You...”  
Harry swallowed heavily, fingers curled into his palm, his wrist resting on Henry’s sternum.  
“You’re very strong.”

Henry chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck with a little shrug. His chest shifted, muscles flexing and bunching and Harry groaned, legs spreading faintly where he sat on the table.  
His stiffening prick needed the extra space.  
And Henry stepped willingly into the bracket of his knees, stroking Harry’s arm warmly.  
“You can touch me.”

Harry nodded, blinked sweat out of his eyes and then smoothed his palm through the thicket of chest hair.  
Over the swell of the left pectoral, down to the dusky nipple, stiff and dark between the hair.  
Henry inhaled deeply, heart thudding even harder against Harry’s palm now.  
Slowly, like a nail drawn by a magnet, Harry leaned forward, until he could kiss the dark curls, the hot skin beneath.  
Closed his mouth around the nipple, teeth scraping the skin around it and Henry gently cradled the back of Harry’s head in a palm.

Together they moved until Henry’s massive thigh was pressed tightly between Harry’s legs. His prick rubbed up against Henry and Harry gasped around the flesh in his mouth.  
Henry shifted his hold on the back of his neck and Harry looked up at him. His cheeks were flushed a healthy red, eyes the slightest bit glassy.  
“I’m going to sit down, yes?”  
Harry nodded, pointing a wobbly hand at the closest chair, and Henry sat down. Harry looked at him from his perch on the table and Henry shuffled the chair closer, urged Harry to put his feet up on the seat, left and right of Henry’s thighs.

Then his large hands hovered over the fastenings of Harry’s trousers, warm eyes asking the question that neither of them was brave enough to voice.  
Harry licked his lips and nodded, brushing his hair away from his sweaty brow.  
Henry nodded aswell and then carefully opened the buttons, of both Harry’s trousers and his linens.  
With infinite care, as if Harry would break if Henry were to use any kind of force on him, Henry took Harry’s straining prick from the folds of his linens and smoothed his thumb down the pulsing vein.  
Harry almost sobbed, so hot was Henry’s hand against his prick.

“Shh, my pearl, shhh, mind the close quarters,” breathed Henry around a chuckle, rubbing his free hand gently over Harry’s arm.  
“Come closer, Henry, please.”  
Henry nodded and crossed the scant distance between them, rubbing Harry’s prick with the flat of his palm against the thick hair between his pectorals.  
The almost-rough of the hair, the heat of Henry’s palm and the sweat slicking Henry’s skin made Harry shake.  
He did not want to close his eyes to the beauty of Henry’s flushed cheeks, the powerful build of his torso.  
But the pleasure threatend to peak, his spine already rigid with it.  
So Harry closed his eyes and lost himself in the push and pull, the drag of Henry’s palm over his flesh, the press of hair and muscle.  
Every now and then a puff of breath ghosted over the wet tip of Harry’s prick and he had to swallow a shout.

“Harry,” Henry said, thumb pressing into the slit of Harry’s prick. “Harry, look at me, my pearl, please.”  
Harry shuddered and slowly opened his eyes.  
Henry looked up at him from the chair, face flushed with sweat, hair dripping.  
His big hand gently held Harry’s prick between the swell of his pectorals and Harry whimpered at the sight.  
Clear pre-ejaculate seeped from his slit and Henry made a soft sound, spreading the slick over Harry’s hot skin.  
“You are so beautiful. The only good thing out here, Harry.”  
“No, no, please, Henry. I’m just, just a man.”

Henry shook his head through Harry’s breathy denial and then bent his head low to kiss at Harry’s prick.  
Spoke against it, Harry feeling like he was being benedicted.  
“I am not the only man thinking that you are the only bastion of home we have left. But I think I am the only one who may see you like this.”  
Harry sobbed and buried his hands in Henry’s thick hair, dragging him up for a kiss.  
He tasted like salt and sweat and Harry shivered, knowing it was himself he tasted on Henry’s tongue.

They kissed until Harry was lightheaded, the room swimming around him, and Henry the only thing keeping him from sliding off the table.  
His strong arms were curled around Harry’s back, one hand snaked between his thighs, gently rubbing at Harry’s leaking prick.  
Harry managed a shaking hand on the front of Henry’s trousers and a moment later his fingers were somehow on the silken heat of the head of Henry’s prick.  
Wet and large it filled his palm, the shaft thick, nestled in more of Henry’s dark curls.

“Oh,” Harry breathed against the side of Henry’s neck and slumped, cheek dragging over his clavicle.  
He inhaled the scent from Henry’s skin, breathing it in like a man half-drowned.  
It was a heady perfume that caught and multiplied in the thicket of hair on Henry’s chest and Harry wanted to lose himself in it.  
His hand moved idly over Henry’s prick, Henry cradled him safely and Harry sank.  
Mouthed at Henry’s chest, lapping the sweat from the curls, the skin.

His cheek rested against the curve of Henry’s chest, his heartbeat loud in Harry’s ear, and Harry nuzzled up against it, like he remembered his mother’s cat doing.  
And Henry pulled his arm away from Harry’s back and then pushed his pectoral closer to Harry’s mouth.  
As if he were a woman, adjusting her bosom in her corset.  
Only that Harry thought this far more handsome than any bosom he’d ever seen.

Harry moaned and buried his face deeper in the warm decollete. He bucked up into Henry’s gentle hand, twisting his own fingers tighter around Henry’s prick.  
Henry groaned and the sound vibrated in his chest, washing over Harry like the rolling ocean.  
It was incomparable.  
He had never felt like this before, had never known he could feel like this.

He moved his hand over Henry’s prick again, coaxing another reverbating moan from him and Harry bucked wildly into Henry’s palm, spilling his seed over his fingers.  
He felt like he was floating in a gentle, warm ocean, the sun in the sky and the water cradling him in huge hands.  
Harry never wanted to feel any different ever again.

He kept his face buried in Henry’s chest, his hand still holding Henry’s prick. It filled his palm so perfectly.  
And Henry’s skin was so warm under his mouth, Harry lapping at it mindlessly.  
“Harry,” Henry said, his voice shaking Harry to his core, his prick jumping desperately in Henry’s hand.  
And then, with another strained word that Harry couldn’t parse, Henry ejaculated thickly over Harry’s hand.  
So hot.  
His hands hadn’t been this warm in weeks.

With a little sigh Harry put his arm around Henry’s waist and urged him close and ever closer, until they were pressed so tightly together that they must look like the same person to an onlooker.  
Harry shivered.  
“I want to be one with you,” he said softly against Henry’s nipple and then sucked on it, feeling it stiffen against his tongue.  
He put his teeth to it gently and Henry sighed above him, again putting his hand to the back of Harry’s head, keeping him where he was.

Henry slowly eased his hand away from Harry’s prick and Harry in turn only slid his hand closer to the root of Henry’s flaccid prick, brushing his fingers through the dense curls. His palm was flat against the pubic bone, fingers buried deep in the hair.  
They held each other like that for a long time.

Only when Harry started shivering, the sweat cooled on his skin, and the cool air pressing in unkindly around them, did they carefully pull apart.  
Henry helped Harry slide down from the desk, helped him tuck his prick away and fastened his clothes again.  
Harry’s hands were shaking, his mind slow with exhaustion.  
Then, when Harry was bundled up in his waistcoat and jacket again, Henry pulled his undershirt on properly and slid his braces over his shoulders.  
He tucked his prick away and Harry felt a pang of loss, mourning the handsome thing for a breath.

Or at least until Henry kissed him deeply, one hand on Harry’s hip, the other cradling his cheek tenderly.  
“I’m needed with the men, my pearl. I will be back for you,” he whispered into Harry’s hair and then stepped back, licking his lips.  
Harry opened his mouth, closed it again and cleared his throat.  
“Please,” he simply said in the end and watched Henry pull on his jumper and shrug on his coat.

Henry lingered by the closed door and only stepped out when it rang seven bells outside.  
Harry was left in the empty sickbay, with only very little evidence for what had transpired.  
The dropped book, the askew chairs, a few droplets of spend that had dripped to the floor.

Harry cleared his throat and washed his hands in the luke warm water by the stove.  
Henry would be back.

Back for him.  
Maybe even tonight.  
God, hopefully tonight.


End file.
